Copper Concentrate from their Prominent Hill mine (near Coober Pedy) is taken by rail to Port Adelaide where it is loaded onto ships and exported. I'd imagine that any processing plant would be located either onsite at the mine, or at a location somewhere near the rail line. Port Augusta? Port Adelaide? Somewhere else? Could be anyone's guess...

Most recent I can find is Q1 update which says the preferred site is near Port Augusta. Earlier thoughts had included signing an MoU with Arrium to build it at Whyalla.

How?
Does Port Augusta have any export port? Is the gulf deep or wide enough to bring sizable ships that far up?
Whyalla or Port Adelaide are the realistic export ports.

More precisely, Port Bonython (once the new jetty is built) or Port Adelaide, although Port Pirie would also be capable. Whyalla, while technically capable, would be unlikely due to the ship not being able to be loaded at a wharf. If the concentrate has to be railed from the plant to the wharf, this double-handling at port would preclude Whyalla, IMO.

A new South Australian iron ore mine has been approved to feed Whyalla's steelworks at cheaper cost, and another to boost iron ore exports from the region.

The new mining leases have been approved in the Middleback Range on Eyre Peninsula and add to Whyalla businessman Sanjeev Gupta's assets portfolio.

His company SIMEC Mining has gained approval for the Iron Sultan mine — which will feed the Whyalla steelworks — and the Iron Warrior mine, which will produce up to 1.5 million tonnes of export iron ore annually.

The ventures are expected to support a workforce of 56 as well as another 130 contractors.

They are the first approvals for the Whyalla region since SIMEC acquired Middleback Range mining leases as part of Gupta GFG Alliance's purchase of debt-laden steelmaker Arrium.

SA Mineral Resources Minister Tom Koutsantonis said the Iron Sultan mine would develop a hybrid pellet feed plant to significantly reduce the price of making steel at the Whyalla blast furnace.

"Iron Sultan will play a significant role in reducing the costs of steelmaking at Whyalla steelworks, while Iron Warrior continues South Australia's role as a reliable iron ore exporter," he said.

"Approval of these two mines demonstrates the commitment of the new owner to develop its South Australian iron ore assets and create a more sustainable steelmaking business."

It could be bigger than Olympic Dam
BHP: Mining giant marks 30 years at Olympic Dam

IN terms of copper deposits, South Australia is often referred to as “elephant country”.

But until two decades ago, we’d only discovered one elephant — the world’s largest polymetallic ore deposit at Olympic Dam, which a group of renegade explorers at Western Mining Corporation discovered in a high-risk exploration program in 1975.

It was more than two decades later, in 2001, that exploration minnow Minotaur Resources discovered the Prominent Hill deposit — now a mine which produces more than 100,000 tonnes of copper per year.

Then in 2005, one-man band Rudy Gomez found the Carrapateena deposit just west of Lake Torrens, which is currently being developed into a $916 million mine by Adelaide mining company OZ Minerals.

In the space of three decades we’ve gone from one major copper mine to three, factoring in Carrapateena’s start up next year. And the impressive copper exploration results revealed by BHP yesterday — an intersection of 180m at a grade of more than 6 per cent about 1km below the surface — indicate we could be on a path to more.

But why has it taken so long for South Australia to capitalise on its resources riches in this area?

Copper has a storeyed history in South Australia. While the myth is that Australia’s wealth was initially derived “riding on the sheep’s back”, in SA the “Monster Mine” at Burra, discovered in 1845, and other mines at Kapunda, Moonta, Wallaroo and Kanmantoo provided the early wealth for the young colony and also a significant proportion of the world’s copper supplies.

These early copper projects were near or at the surface, meaning mining and discovery was straightforward.

The difficulty in modern times is that, to mix metaphors, the low-hanging fruit has all been plucked, and SA’s geology means that while more massive copper deposits are suspected to exist, they are hidden hundreds of metres under a cap of rock and dirt.

Existing South Australian copper mines. Picture: OZ Minerals

Paul Heithersay, chief executive of the State Government’s Department for Energy and Mining, has for many years used a graph which shows the dramatic difference in size between the Olympic Dam deposit — which is estimated can be mined for up to another 100 years — and other copper deposits, such as Prominent Hill, which have been discovered.

The graph shows that in other areas around the world, copper deposits exist on a continuum. Where one elephant roams, there are likely to be more.

But in SA, the size of Olympic Dam, the discovery of which was based on exploration theories considered radical at the time, sits by itself in terms of sheer magnitude.

The reason is obvious — it is very difficult to discover minerals under 400-1000m of rock. But it has been done.

Paul Heithersay, chief executive of the State Government’s Department for Energy and Mining, has for many years used a graph which shows the dramatic difference in size between the Olympic Dam deposit — which is estimated can be mined for up to another 100 years — and other copper deposits, such as Prominent Hill, which have been discovered.

The graph shows that in other areas around the world, copper deposits exist on a continuum. Where one elephant roams, there are likely to be more.

But in SA, the size of Olympic Dam, the discovery of which was based on exploration theories considered radical at the time, sits by itself in terms of sheer magnitude.

The reason is obvious — it is very difficult to discover minerals under 400-1000m of rock. But it has been done.In 2005, after 17 years of trying to find partners to help him fund the drilling of exploration holes at his Carrapateena prospect in the state’s Far North, Rudy Gomez bet his life savings on two drill holes which would punch more than 600m into the rock.

It was a good bet. Mr Gomez eventually reaped more than $100 million when he sold the project.

It has long been rumoured that BHP had come across some interesting exploration results somewhere in the state’s Far North.

While those rumours were probably just that, the company’s announcement yesterday is sure to fire up other explorers keen to test their exploration theories. Share prices have already started to move based on this theory.

Mr Gomez himself has other projects on the go. And small, listed companies, such as Argonaut Resources, are also preparing to drill.

All of this activity could be a boon for the state.

The previous Labor government instigated the state’s copper strategy, which aims to boost copper production in SA to one million tonnes a year over the next 20 years. We have a way to go.

While we have about 68 per cent of Australia’s copper resources, most of that tied up in Olympic Dam, we produced only about a third of the nation’s copper in 2015.

In that year, copper production was 284,314 tonnes. While BHP has plans, some solid and some still on the drawing board, to expand Olympic Dam, hitting that target will involve the development of a number of new mines.

But the global demand for copper is there, and the potential lies within SA to find and produce more of the metal, which is integral to developing economies as they consume more power, cars and electrical goods.

Oil and gas testing is set to take place in the Great Australian Bight this year, after the national petroleum regulator granted permission to exploration company PGS.

Environmental groups have slammed the decision to allow seismic testing near Kangaroo Island and Port Lincoln, while the tuna industry has questioned whether it is even likely to go ahead.

Seismic testing involves firing soundwaves into the ocean floor to detect the presence of oil or gas reserves.

For oil companies, it is the first step to learning more about oil and gas resources beneath the ocean floor, and how they could be developed.

The National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA) granted permission for the testing to be done over a 30,100-square-kilometre area, located 80 kilometres from Port Lincoln and 90 kilometres west of Kangaroo Island.

The testing is set to take place between September and November.

The fishing industry has long had reservations about the impact seismic testing would have on the local tuna industry.

PGS has been ordered not to interfere with or displace pygmy blue whales, southern bluefin tuna, and southern right whales.

"It's been approved but with such strict conditions on sightings for example of blue whales, of disruption to the pattern of southern bluefin migration," Mr Jeffriess said.

"It's impossible to see how it can proceed, economically."

The Wilderness Society has slammed the permit, saying the practice can deafen whales and even kill smaller marine animals.

"It's obvious that blasting massive amounts of noise constantly for months on end through a water column in a space where animals communicate and navigate and live by sound and sonar, it is obvious that this is going to have a terrible impact on those animals," the environmental group's Peter Owen said.

"I fail to see how you can actually approve this type of seismic activity in the middle of one of the most significant whale nurseries in the world.

"It's totally unacceptable."

The Greens say the seismic testing is the first step to drilling in the Great Australian Bight.

"Why on Earth would we be wanting to sink oil wells in the Great Australian Bight, put our marine life and beaches at risk and make climate change worse," senator Sarah Hanson-Young said.

"We've got to be getting out of fossil fuels and transitioning to a clean, green economy."

There has been little research into the impact of seismic testing in Australia, but Western Australian researchers have found noise from seismic air guns significantly increased mortality in scallops.

Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association spokesman Matthew Doman maintained testing is sustainable.

"We have a very long track record of conducting seismic in Australian waters without impact on the marine environment," he said.

"Our energy mix is changing, the role of renewable energy is increasing … our industry is very much a supporter of that.

"But we will use a lot of oil and a lot of gas for decades to come."

He said there had not been any wells drilled in the bight in the past 15 years.